


Bleeding Hearts Around

by Violsva



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Mutual Pining, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7498530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violsva/pseuds/Violsva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love might not consider this a fantastic triumph.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bleeding Hearts Around

**Author's Note:**

> For Watson's Woes [July Writing Prompt #15](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1565866.html). Based on ["Love Armed"](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43641) by Aphra Behn. The first part is narrated by Holmes, the second by Watson.

I admit, now, that I am conquered. The pain is entirely new, and entirely unexpected; I have listened to a hundred clients tell me of the idiocies they have committed for love and only now can I even begin to understand.

Looking at your eyes I could almost believe it is shared; that both of us are flattened by the same passions; that all I would have to do is reach out and ask and you would answer. But you have always looked at me so - whatever is in your gaze has been there for years, and cannot be related to my own suddenly revealed passion.

I cannot believe that others feel this, and still manage to go about their lives; now that I am subject to desire, it seems, that desire is stronger than anyone else’s ever has been, strong enough to destroy me, or to make me wish to destroy the laws of the world to fulfill it, could I only expect that you would be willing.

*

I have waited for years, and suppressed every outward sign - I don’t know why I say ‘waited,’ for I have no expectation that it will come to an end. I do not languish - most days I barely notice it, until some little incident forces me to notice your beauty. I manage well enough, within the barriers set up by my fears, and whenever I think of overstepping them some casual word of yours drives me back. I know better now than to think that you are intentionally cruel, but you do not have to be. You are merely yourself, proud and distant even in your affection, and that is enough to stab at my heart.

It is not exposure I fear, not ruin or the law. The one thing I trust is that you would not abandon me to it. But you are free of what I have always suffered from beside you, and from that freedom I cannot imagine you responding with anything but disdain. Well-hidden, polite, even kind disdain, but nothing else.

**Author's Note:**

> There is now a [sequel](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7543222).


End file.
